"This," he said slowly and ringingly, "is the end. When I entered this room I loved you--I admit it. But--you have deceived me! Look at that hand! It is covering--what? The floating costae! Your heart is not where you would have me believe. It is fully three inches higher and more to the right. That is not a small matter, or one with which you should trifle as you do. But you have deceived me in a greater than that." "Oh, what is it? What have I done?" sobbed Mabel hysterically. "The greater matter," continued Charles in trumpet tones, "is that _the heart is not the seat of the emotions at all_. I can only conclude that your agitation was feigned. I wish you good-day, Madam." He had reached the door when she cried aloud. "Charles!" An urgent message from Charles's cerebellum, delivered to certain motor nerves by way of the spinal cord, disposed him to turn on his heel. He waited in silence. "Charles dearest, if it was the wrong place, and I didn't cover my heart after all, why, Charles, remember Johnny's foot and be logical!" She was there before him, glorious, and Charles stood dazzled. "You are right!" he cried. "Mabel! If you _had_ covered your heart!!" "Charles!!!" * * * * * [Illustration: _Householder (with the Zeppelin obsession)._ "Ah, I Like the Snow. It Reduces The Menace From Above."] [Illustration: !!!!!!] * * * * * "Yesterday between Forges and Bethincourt, west of the Meuse, the enemy made use of suffocating gas, but did not attack with infancy."--_Timaru Herald (N.Z.)._ We are glad to have this evidence that the Huns have given up using children to screen their advances. * * * * * "Plagues of rates have appeared at Pinsk, and in the British trenches." _Buenos Ayres Herald._ Even at home we have not entirely escaped the epidemic. * * * * * "Floating Baby Found Unarmed." _Provincial Paper._ Had the Huns known of its defenceless condition they would never have allowed it to escape. * * * * * "'Like a poet, a geographer is born, not mad,' once wrote Sir Clements Markham." _Times of India._ Some poets will be greatly relieved by this doctrine. * * * * * [Illustration: _Oldest Inhabitant (finally)._ "I tell 'ee I bain't goin' outside the door. Why, what'd folks think of me with no badge, nor harmlet, nor nothin'?"] * * * * * LINES TO AN OLD FRIEND. [Dr. GEORGE PERNET, in a recent treatise on "The Health of the Skin," discusses the continued decline in the popularity of the tall hat.]